First steps in Ireland…

First week in Ireland after a dream crossing from Bilbao, and so far, the Emerald Island is welcoming us with magnificent sunshine! So all those stories about it raining all the time here are just unfounded rumors?… 🤔

So yes, we don’t want to rub it too much to avoid grilling our “beginner’s luck”, but it turns out that since our arrival on the island, the sun has been shining in Ireland (which compensates a little for the rain of the last two weeks in Spain)… We’re keeping our fingers crossed that it lasts… But before we get to that, let’s pick up where we left off…

Brittany Ferries, mon amour !…

So we boarded at the very end of the port of Bilbao (itself about 15 kilometers from the city) for our south-north crossing of the Atlantic (it’s a little less “Vendée Globe” than east-west, but hey… 😜). And I have to admit, I fell in love with Brittany Ferries! I don’t know if it’s the fact that, despite the two floors reserved for vehicles being completely full, the boat itself seemed completely empty (and therefore, much more pleasant…), our cabin with two large portholes to contemplate the sea, the dolphins who accompanied us at the beginning and end of the journey, or the “lounge” of the boat, located just below the captain’s station, and therefore offering roughly the same view of the front of the ship as that of the captain, but this crossing was, by far, my favorite of all those we have done so far! Okay, so we also ate three times more than we should have (the idea of ​​a lounge serving food and drinks continuously is fine in an airport, where you’re only there for an hour or two, but here, 25 hours straight is deadly for those extra pounds!…)

Otherwise, it was a peaceful crossing (a few waves at the beginning, but nothing too bad), with dolphins and even a shark, and dozens of gannets flying around the ferry, spotted from our large lounge with panoramic views.

Boarding took a little longer than usual, and disembarking even longer (one of the ramps connecting the vehicle deck 2 to the vehicle deck 1 refused to go down, so they had to lower it backwards and reorganise the entire flow of vehicles to get off, which took… a while!), but nothing that could dampen my newfound love for Brittany Ferries!! 🤣

PS: We are in no way sponsored by Brittany Ferries (or anyone else, for that matter… in case someone is interested…)

Slí Charman (co. Wexford)

Once off the ferry and through customs (yes, Ireland is part of the European Union, but oddly enough, there were customs checks both when leaving Spain and when arriving in Ireland, although, admittedly, the Irish checkpoints were much more relaxed and friendly…), we began our quick adaptation. Our new mantra: stay in the left lane… stay in the left lane… stay in the left lane… 🤓

For our first stop, we didn’t really go very far. Just about fifteen kilometers (yes, here, we drive on the left, but we count in kilometers) to settle in the dunes of southern County Wexford, on Slí Charman, the coastal path that runs throughout this part of the island.

We don’t know if it’s the fact of having found the sun again, but the place seemed extremely pleasant and rather pretty to us, with its immense beach for kilometres (we walked a little more than seven of them, until we reached a kind of monolith, like in 2001: A Space Odyssey…). Everywhere, the beach is bordered by a large dune covered with grass, behind which we were super comfy, protected from the wind and right under the sun!… Yes, it’s sunny, but it’s also windy… very windy… but if that’s the price to pay for the sun to stay, so be it!…

Hook Peninsula

We were so comfortable in our dune that we decided to stay there for two days… Then we hit the road again to reach the Hook Peninsula, a little further west. In fact, our first real trip in Ireland made us realise that we’re going to have to revise our calculations downwards, as far as distances are concerned… Everything seems close, when you look at the map, but the roads (at least on this side) are mostly very small winding country roads, where you have to slow down when you pass someone (even if the road is not that narrow… it’s more the fact of driving backwards that doesn’t help… 😁). As a result, it takes us much longer to cover a distance that seems rather short at first sight…

Our stop on the Hook Peninsula wasn’t initially planned, but it was a very good idea to add it, since in addition to the oldest working lighthouse in the world (over 800 years old), while walking, we discovered our first beach beneath the cliffs… So yes, we’ll undoubtedly see others, and probably even more beautiful ones, but this one was already a great place to start…

Duncannon & Comeragh Mountains (Mahon Falls)

Before leaving the Hook Peninsula, we took a short break in Duncannon (a village best known for its beach… which serves as an official municipal parking lot!), for breakfast overlooking the sea. The Hook Peninsula, and more specifically the town of New Ross, to the north, is also famous for being the birthplace of John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s father (JFK to his friends), before he emigrated to the United States and his son became president. There are also a whole host of monuments and tourist attractions named after the Kennedys around here, including the gigantic Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Bridge…

For a change, we then decided to head a little further inland to see some of the “mountains” that were nearby… So yes, let’s not kid ourselves, the definition of “mountains” is probably a little different here, since after our big climb, we reached the dizzying altitude of… 380m.a.s.l! 🤣

That said, the landscapes around here have a rather mountainous feel, and are especially beautiful, with large moors of ferns (unfortunately, not yet green) and pretty woolly sheep with black heads and feet (like in Wallace and Gromit 🤓). We’re right next to the Mahon Falls, which we’ll obviously visit before leaving. Our idea, in fact, for this trip, is to really take our time and settle down for at least two nights in each place we like… And we liked this one a lot, so… we’re going to stay here until the wind calms down a bit, the fog dissipates, and we can go see the waterfalls… Yes, the wind is the same on the coast and in the mountains (it’s even stronger in the mountains, in fact, which forced us to come down a bit from our mountain pass to settle in a more sheltered spot, closer to the waterfalls), and the four drops of rain last night generated a thick fog this morning (we can still hear the sheep, but we can’t see them anymore! 😜). But the weather forecast is positive: all of this will lift quickly, and the sun will come back this afternoon!…

Back to Blog

In the mountains, as IN the dunes, LEAVE NO TRACE!

– Always travel on public ways and respect the signs.
– Limit noise and interfere as little as possible with wildlife.
– Respect the other users.
– Leave rocks, plants and other natural features as you found them and respect historic sites.
– Take your waste with you and throw it into the appropriate containers, in the nearest village.
– Do not camp inside protected areas and do not make any fires.